Whom I Cherish
by The Quiet Place
Summary: Postfic. Sat in the wreckage of her life, Mirielle waits: it's either a new beginning or the end for the both of them, and the odds are 50/50, just as long as Kirika keeps breathing.
1. 50 50

**Whom I Cherish**

Twenty, in the partition between the bed and the rest of the room; there's still water, thank god, but the plant, the plant's dead, without a shadow of a doubt, and those twenty bullets aren't going to remove themselves, not by any measure.

She's already double-dosing. Still wound in her leg is burning like hellfire, still her face is throbbing, still there's a deep dark ache inside her somewhere and everywhere that makes it impossible to move and impossible to sleep. Instead she leans against the wall in a stupor, listening to the girl's ragged breaths, waiting for that terrible moment where the breathing stops and Kirika—

—_fifty-fifty_, the surgeon said.

He didn't ask questions. She paid him what she had and let him have the car too, on the condition someone drove them back. It wasn't hers anyway. Let the Soldats worry about it.

Fifty-fifty. She can't sleep. She can't take that chance. She has to wait.

The bullet was meant to have been lodged in _her_. He had asked if she wanted it. She had declined.

It was—

—the car journey had been the longest, most hellishly painful thing of her life. And all the time trapped in there with them no matter how far she wound the windows down, blood, the stink of blood and death, and with every little bump Kirika whimpered like a wounded animal.

Mirielle slumps next to the bed and listens to make sure the girl she promised to kill is still breathing.

Fifty fucking fifty.

Mirielle leans back, tries to focus, and begins counting the bullet holes in her apartment, in her life.

It wouldn't be so bad if they hadn't had to run away. It was losing all the blood that did it, the surgeon said, losing the blood and fatigue and all the wounds and the gaping hole in her side, but mainly the blood.

Mirielle can still smell it. The gorge rises in her throat.

She holds her head in her hands and manages to choke it back, for now.

_Mirielle, whom I cherish_—

"Kirika," she says, "I got your letter."

Nothing, just the rasping as the girl's chest rises and falls.

"I got your letter." She repeats. "I…I read it."

It's cold now all the windows have been smashed. The fact that this isn't a crime scene means the landlord is more intelligent than she gave him credit for. Mirielle thinks, _he'll want paying, though_.

She huddles in on herself. Cold.

Something stops her crawling into the bed. With Kirika.

"I wonder what you meant…you always were bad at…expressing yourself."

For the first time in around three years, Mirielle has a sudden craving for a cigarette. She ignores it. She also ignores the fact that there's a packet at the bottom of the drawer somewhere and it wouldn't be hard to light it off something, probably the stove.

"You're a real dummy, you know. Pretty stupid."

She wants a damn cigarette. She wants a drink of water—desperately—she wants to stand up and stretch but it's hard enough staying upright against this wall. So damn tired, that'll be the adrenaline and the wounds and the fighting and the drive, longest hours of her life, that'll be the heart in her mouth minute after minute after gut-wrenching minute.

Because of her.

Because of Kirika.

"You're trouble." She says. "I blame you for this, you know. Someone's going to have to foot the bill."

Someone passes by on a motorbike. Everything's louder with no windows. Mirielle feels like her head's going to split open.

She swears. It comes out in Corsican.

"And Uncle." She mutters. "I had to choose. They made me choose."

Rise. Fall. Rise. Fall. Breathe.

"They're all dead. All of them. My informants. My…friends. I guess. Not really friends."

She stares at the bullet holes in her wall. The bed's okay, for the most part. Needs replacing though. She could get twins. Or bunks.

They don't have to share a bed anymore.

They don't have to share a life anymore.

"I bet if I asked to kill you," she whispers, "I bet you'd let me, wouldn't you?"

The girl rasps. Still breathing. Still breathing, for now.

"…I hate breaking promises."

The apartment falls silent. Mirielle touches her face, feels the cut there, wonders if it'll scar. She's been lucky so far, very lucky, and that's the thing about being a pretty, leggy blonde; beneath suspicion. No one ever suspects Barbie. Of course, facial scarring might interfere with that. Then again, there's always plastic surgery: and that's well within her means.

_They can do anything nowadays_, Mirielle thinks. _I could probably have a new face if I wanted. _

_I could be somebody else._

"What will we do, Kirika?"

Something makes a thudding noise. Mirielle has the gun pointed at it without even thinking, before she remembers that her apartment was sprayed with submachine gunfire and that now everything's falling to bits.

"We're going to have to move out for a while so they can fix this place up, you know. I know this house by the beach we can stay in. God knows I need a holiday."

Mirielle looks at her feet, pale in the moonlight. She tries to wiggle her toes. A jolt of fire goes up her injured leg.

If the have Soldats followed them, they're finished.

She looks over at Kirika, laid prone on her back, arms outstretched, face tight with pain, and sees again her face looking up at her from the pit, smiling, smiling as she waits for Mirielle to let go, smiling patiently as she waits for the woman to do what she promised she would and finally, finally, land the killing blow, smiling with something soft and heart-rending in her eyes, something that Mirielle cannot name, as she waits for Mirielle to drop her down into the fire.

_Mirielle, whom I cherish_—

—_Is she going to make it, doctor?—_

—_Well….to be honest, I'd call it around…fifty-fifty, Miss Bouquet—_

"Kirika," she says, but the rest of the words stick in her throat and instead she just looks down into her lap, into her open palms, and listens to the girl's breathing. Her eyes are hot.

When the thickness has gone and she can breathe again, Mirielle moves over to the bed. She pushes up with her good leg, biting back a gasp; she pulls herself on with the good arm, and finally she lies there, staring into the dark.

Kirika is still alive beside her.

Mirielle turns and looks at her. It never occurred to her to ask how old she is. She knows approximately (probably around fifteen to eighteen, or seventeen, maybe), but then again, even that could be a lie, just like her name, just like the birthday on that student card of hers.

Kirika, who has probably never had a birthday.

Kirika, whose face, even her face, could be a lie.

Right now, even flecked with blood, bandaged, she still looks like a child. And in some ways, Mirielle thinks, she is.

Just a child.

And yet…

"Kirika," she murmurs, "we promised we'd have tea. You better not let me down."

No response. She didn't expect one anyway.

The bed is almost obscenely comfortable compared to the wall. She resists sleep a moment, wounds still hurting; and then from beside her comes the smallest of sounds, maybe a whimper.

Mirielle turns over and sees Kirika's eyelashes flutter. She holds her breath.

It takes a long moment, but eventually the girl opens her eyes.

"Mi…re…yu."

And Mirielle Bouquet feels like her heart might burst.

_#_

_A.N: So, a Noir post-fic, first draft (and by first draft I mean posted at 4.30 a.m as soon as I wrote the last sentence, lol). I love criticism on my fics, constructive or otherwise, as one is helpful and the other makes me laugh. So, hoped you enjoyed reading. _

_edited to remove some pretty stupid typos, thanks for the heads up on that one. 4.30a.m: not great for grammatical/typographical/spelling accuracy, let me tell you. _


	2. 70 30

**70/30**

She dies.

It doesn't take long. It doesn't hurt, much. _She's_ there—the world's bigger when she's there—and Kirika lies where she is, until no, there's nothing, no light, and she can't move. Nothing happens. There is nothing. Nothing.

_There was once, a long time ago. They pushed her into the river. It was strong. It was like hands pressing down…many, many hands, hard hands. They pressed til it was black and neither way was up. The water rolled out and she rolled out with the water. _

_Black, black—then there was a light and she reached for it and went up and there was air and sky and the hands didn't press down anymore, they pulled, pulled down, into the dark. _

It was a long time ago. Perhaps it was a long time ago.

Perhaps she was very young.

It had been Altena. Altena had pulled her up. Very white teeth; she smiled. She smiled, and gave her it, the gun.

They come. And with a few shots. They fell into the water and the hands took them, red hands now. They rolled away with the tide.

It was her wish. Altena's.

But there is no light now, not in this place and the hands are pulling, pulling down.

This world is very small. Perhaps, Kirika thinks, the outside world just doesn't exist anymore. But it must: the world has to exist, because Mirielle still exists in it. She's nearby. She has to be.

Kirika hopes that the world still exists for _her_.

She thinks she's still breathing.

Perhaps she's alive.

* * *

She's alive.

She knows she's alive because there is a voice. A voice that says no words, but a voice. A noise, a human noise, a human voice; a human voice that says no words.

And then this small world of her expands, and finally, there _is_ something: there is colour. Something a long way away, swaying—the ceiling. Her eyes are open.

This world of hers hurts. It hurts in its centre. She tries to make a sound.

"M…"

It's coming.

"Re…yu…"

"Ssh."

There is a hand on her head. It's cool. The palm rests on her temple. Hard fingertips. The beginning of nails. They stay there a long time.

"Ssh." Says the voice, and it's _her_. It's dark, and Kirika can only see the side of her face. This time no words come out. She tries, but there are no words. There is pain, though. The pain rises and it comes out of her with a small sound. Then there's more. The centre of her world: pain.

It's just too much, and the hands are coming, pulling her back down into the dark.

"Ssh. It's alright. Just go to sleep."

Mirielle's mouth moves before her voice comes but it's alright. Kirika understands anyway, and her eyes close.

"M…re…"

There is a finger on her lips.

"Go to sleep. I'll be here when…when you wake up."

There's something…something strange in her voice, but…it's alright. It has to be, because _she_ said so.

Mirielle.

Kirika lives.

* * *

Kirika lies there and wonders if she's dying.

She wants the water to roll her over again, pull her down into the depths.

She wants to ask someone to shoot her. They do that with horses, or so she's heard.

It hurts. It hurts terribly. She wants to reach out and hold the place but none of her limbs will move. Then everything spins and her thoughts go flying off in all directions. There's no light here, no surface to swim to, just the black—just Noir. This is a small, small world, inhabited solely by her and the pain.

Or is it, she wonders, is it her world? Is it the world of a lie called Yuumura Kirika? Or is it _hers_, the nameless person who was there before the lie existed? Perhaps it belongs to both. Perhaps it belongs to neither. Perhaps they're one and the same.

It all spins round.

There is something very wrong. It's cold here. She knows she's not dreaming, she knows she's not awake. She tries to figure it out but her brain won't focus. Her thoughts won't stay in one place for long enough.

But Kirika knows in a small patch of her mind, the patch that, even now, remains as clear and unfogged as a new sheet of glass; this part of her that does not sleep when she sleeps, the assassin, knows: _morphine_.

But this part of her that is perhaps more Noir than anything, tells her something else, too. Even though she cannot see, cannot really hear, even when her mind is in disarray, it _knows_, this secret part of her. Even though she is submerged in the black water and the hands and the pain, it tells her, without a doubt.

_Mirielle is somewhere nearby._

She tries to speak.

"M…yu…re…yu…"

Nothing. Did she even speak, or did she just imagine it? did the last few seconds even happen? Did any of it?

She desperately wants to touch the place where the fire—the pain—is burning her, stop it somehow. It's just too much to lie here and not move while it eats her from the inside out.

It's not meant to be like this.

She wants the water to roll her over and drag her under. Altena, she thinks, as the woman sits smiling in her memory, I don't want the gun. I have one. It's lying at the bottom of that river.

Altena, she thinks, did you make them push me in? Did you make it happen?

_Kirika. _

There was a time. There was once, when men came, and they had hard fists. She remembers those fists, bloody fists. She remembers being small—or else everyone was big. She isn't sure.

She sees Altena smile and stretch out her hands, and then she sees the fists again.

_Don't—_

Kirika remembers there being a pain in her arm sometime ago (or maybe no time ago, she isn't quite sure). A sharp pain; she moved away from it, but then she couldn't move anymore, and the hands came again to drag her back down.

It's changing me, she thinks. This isn't right. I have to ask.

(Morphine).

_Kirika?_

_Are you—_

_Hold on._

Her world gets smaller and smaller, darker and deeper. She is back by the river and sees someone being dragged along by it. It's probably her.

Then the fists again, coming for her. Blood-flecked fists. Altena's there and she's smiling. Then the fists come down on her again. Someone pushes her back into the water.

Altena, she thinks, did you make the men come, did you make those fists appear? Did you make this happen to me?

_Kirika, I've brought you something to drink_. _Try and have a bit, alright_?

Kirika wants to try but her lips don't want to move. She tries. Then she feels glass against them, cool glass, and then water.

It feels so much better.

"Good girl." Says a voice, and Kirika realises that Mirielle had been talking to her. She hadn't been sure.

"How does it feel?" The voices says.

"t….han…hands…."

"…Hands?"

She tries to nod for her. She feels like this is something _she_ should understand, about the river.

"Riv…er. Hands. Sh…she…made…"

Hard fingertips touch her face and smooth the skin under her eyes. It's…wet.

"…made…me…"

"It's alright."

But it's not alright, thinks Kirika, _She_ has to know.

"They….made me…hurt…"

"Kirika, don't—"

"I was…in…the river…"

It's no good. She's fading out again. She tries. She tries for Mirielle. .

"in…th…wa…t…"

Kirika wonders if she is dying.

* * *

It comes in cycles. She feels alive, and she feels dead, alive and dead. But _she_ is there, and her world expands again, and soon she can see and move again.

(Mirielle has to take her to the bathroom, though. Her legs still don't work very well).

But the pain is normal pain, and being asleep and being awake are different things again. Life comes a little closer.

Kirika dreams of things she has never seen.

(But she has, of course, just as a different person).

* * *

There are no days anymore, but this is perhaps…it feels like a Saturday. Morning. The light is starting to come. There are voices outside. _She_ was saying something about the windows. Something about there being none.

There's a warmth in the bed next to Kirika.

_She_ looks very tired.

_She_ still has that cut on her face.

Kirika tries to remember how she got it, then comes up with a pointed gun, _her_ leaning round the corner, teeth gritted, finger twitching on the trigger, hands shaking slightly, looking up.

The Manor. How long has it been?

How long has Mirielle been looking after her here?

Evidently the Soldats haven't come. That seems…odd. They were there at the Manor. Mirielle had said something about 'Breffort'. Perhaps. It was while they were in that car. They must, Kirika thinks, be afraid.

But if it came down to it, if it was necessary, could she fight?

She sits up.

The urge to cry out goes away after about 10 seconds. Too long.

There is no gun on the bedside table. This is a problem. She looks beneath the pillow. Nothing. Nothing within eyesight. There should be one strapped under the pooltable. If it's still there. And that would take too long to reach. This is unacceptable.

_Always be prepared, because they will always be coming for you_.

It's…it's important.

She braces herself, then turns, ready to stand.

"Kirika?"

Mirielle rubs her face and then looks up at her.

"Are you okay?"

"Mm."

She yawns, looks sideways at where the clock was, then sighs.

"It's better if you stay in bed." She says.

"Mirielle."

She turns quickly.

"Yes?"

"Where….where is the gun?"

"What gun?"

There's a sharpness to her voice now. Kirika knows that tone, and say nothing.

She sighs, and after a moment lies back down. Then she stretches. Kirika watches.

"Which gun?" Mirielle says.

"Do you have one near you?"

"….no."

This isn't right.

"Kirika, why does that matter right now?"

They're coming. They're always coming.

"The Soldats." She says.

Mirielle gives her one of those looks again. For a moment she seems angry, or wary; but then Kirika realises she's just trying to understand. There are lots of things that Mirielle does that seem angry. Some of them aren't though, not really. Some of them.

She sighs. "What about them?"

The shutters click. Some glass falls to the floor as they do. The wind.

"Kirika," she says, "If they were going to come, we'd be dead already."

She's right. But still.

Mirielle gets up. Her feet make no sound. Kirika can't see her once she's past the partition. She is worried that she's made her angry.

Then she comes back.

"Here."

Kirika takes the gun. So it was still under the pool table. It feels…heavy. A little wrong. She handles it, checks the safety, feels it warm in her hands. Then she reaches over to put it on the bedside table.

It falls to the ground. She gasps.

Mirielle reaches over, pulls her back, then goes and picks it up.

"I'll keep this by me." She says. "You're being odd this morning, Kirika."

Kirika looks away. Mirielle resettles herself on the bed and puts the gun on the floor next to her, within reach. Then, over her shoulder, she speaks.

"I've decided."

"Hmm?"

"When you can walk, we're going to go and stay somewhere else. That way there's time to get this place fixed up, and…well, it'll be probably be safer. Not much safer, but safer."

She pauses.

"Does that make you feel better?"

"Mm."

"I'm going back to sleep. You should too."

The bed moves as she lies down.

"Mirielle."

"Hm?"

"Are you….okay?"

She rolls over and fixes her with a _look_.

"Lie down." She says.

It takes a while.

"Now. The house is near the beach. I'll get someone to come in and clean it before we get there. It's very quiet. There's a bedroom on the ground floor so there won't be lots of stairs to climb."

Kirika nods.

"We'll stay there while they fix the apartment. No one will know where we're going. I'll hire a car. It'll be like…a vacation."

"Mirielle."

"_What_?"

"…_Are_ you okay?"

Her eyes flash. Suddenly there is a tautness about her entire being; her fists close in on themselves. Dangerous, to ask twice. She's…she's _angry_. And Kirika just doesn't understand _why_.

"I—"

She stops, and stares, eyes raking over her face, as if she's searching for something. What's she looking for? What's she trying to protect herself from?

_Is it me?_

And then she says, "I'm going to buy a new plant."

_I'm going to buy a new plant_.

Oh.

The _plant_.

"Another orchid. Probably. Maybe two this time. The place needs brightening up a bit. Or, it will, anyway."

Those eyes are still running Kirika through and she realises—there, that's what it is. The letter.

"Did you—" She blurts out.

"Yes."

Her throat is tight. It's cold in here. _She_ doesn't look away. Her gaze doesn't soften even a little.

_Mirielle, don't look at me like that. Please, Mirielle_.

Her cheeks are wet.

"You…" Mirielle says.

Then there's a hand under her chin, tilting it up. A warm hand. Kirika closes her eyes.

"You're a real idiot, you know. I bet you thought you'd never come back here, didn't you?"

Her thumb begins to stroke Kirika's cheek.

The words die in her mouth.

"That's very unfair, you know. Giving me no say in the matter. I don't like it when people do that. If you have something to say to me, you should say it to my face. Understand?"

_Her_ hand moves, cups Kirika's face. She feels her lean closer.

"Leaving me a note like that…it was pretty selfish of you, Kirika."

Her fingertips brush away the tears. She's sat close. As she speaks, her other arm comes around her, pulling her in, leaning against her.

"I've half a mind not to talk to you any more, you know."

She gently presses Kirika's face into her shoulder.

"Don't do it again."

"Mm."

Her skin is soft. It smells of her, perfumed, heady. Kirika breathes her in. This, she thinks, is…safe. Yes, safe. It's an odd feeling. A feeling like being the only one for miles around, sat in the sun. To be totally, and utterly, alone; _safety_.

Of course, she's here too. That's fine, though. They can be alone together.

But…

But she just has to say it, just has to ask, just to make sure.

"Mirielle—"

She sighs. Kirika feels it through her body. The bed makes a sound as she moves, curling her legs, uncurling them.

"I know." She says shortly.

The breath catches in her throat.

Then, softly, she says, "I know, Kirika."

Kirika believes her.

They sit in silence for a while. And then, because it's dark, and comfortable, and they are alone, without moving, they fall asleep.

Kirika does not dream.

Kirika does not die.

Kirika lives.

#

_A.N: So. Second chapter. I actually haven't slept after posting the first one, so I'm expecting typos and shit. Hope you guys have enjoyed it so far, and if anyone has any suggestions about what direction to go in next, I will be extremely grateful. Hey: suggestions mean quicker updates, people. ;D_

_Major props to _**shetan83**_ for their invaluable help in making this fic fit for public consumption. ;) Ta muchly!_


End file.
